Editorial: Big call to send troops

It's a big call to send NZ troops to fight ISIS

If New Zealand is to send troops to Iraq to help fight Islamic State we need to do it for the right reasons.

So far the reasons, according to the Prime Minister, amount to "because everyone else is doing it". He has claimed the move has New Zealanders' support because of the disgusting brutality of the terror group's actions, which include beheading hostages and burning them alive.

Neither of these is a good enough reason to commit to this fight.

Veteran Middle East journalist Jon Stephenson, who has engaged in verbal stoushes through the media with the Prime Minister and Defence Force before, is right to question the process in which this decision is being made.

He said yesterday on TVNZ's Breakfast there hadn't been enough discussion over the issue, and said Mr Key was arrogantly and recklessly cosying up to the Americans, "writing cheques ... that ordinary New Zealanders, soldiers and civilians, are going to have to cash".

Mr Key should have known better than to hit back below the belt in a subsequent interview.

"I could tell you some stuff [about Jon Stephenson] that would prove that he's not a guy of great credibility," he said.

There should be no room in high-level politics for nudge-nudge wink-wink playground antics like that.

This is a high-stakes issue. Our contribution, we're told, would be very little - 40 to 100 people. How much of a difference will we make?

Is the political gain we will earn worth the extra danger New Zealanders will be put in worldwide, including in this isolated little country where, the Prime Minister tells us, there are 35 to 40 people being watched as potential terror risks?

Maybe sending troops is the right decision - a call Cabinet was making yesterday and announcing today - but we the public need to know this decision is being made for the right reasons and free from political promises or pressure.